Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-10-25
THE PEANUT,s MANY USES.
1t Serves the Boy at the Circus, the
Housewife for Salad and Ihe Confec.
tiOner for Candles and Chocolate.

Housewife for salad and Ihe COnfece
tioner for Candies and Chocolate.
GFrom the New York Star.1
The peenut is a thorough democrat. He
is not fair to look upon, not half so pretty
as his much-abused brother, the old and
yer-blooming chestnut, yet he is equally
at home in the Fifth avenue palace as he
is in the tenement on the Bend, and is
equally loved and respected in both, although
he is often suSared in the more fashionable
quarter.
No one for a moment would suspect it,
but really 'Ethere's millions in it." Not
only does the peanut afford a comfortable
living to thousands of gentlemen who quit
sunny Italy for Italy's good, to bloom out as
merchants at the street cornors of Gotham,
but it aids in giving employment 20 other
thousands on three eontinents-Europe, Af-
RIGA and America.
From Virginia southwark to the Gulf of
Mexico it grows in great abundance, and
millions of bushels are dug up annually
to provide for people who attend the circus
and are compelled to listen to the ancient
| jokes of the clown. When Jack Frost
| first makes himself acquainted with the
beautiful autumn then the peanut farmer is
in his glory. He hies himself at early dawn
digs up the modest psanut For the peanut
is modest and hides from the vulgar gaze.
Indeed, it is peculiari y to push its pods
into instead of out of the ground. Hence
it requires digging to obtain the crop. The
farmer with his pronged hoe pulls out the
vine with the peanut attached, and leaves
them on the ground for two or three days to
dry. Then he removes them to a shed,
where they quietly rest for two weeks. The
nuts are then picked from the vine and are
ready for the aiming mill.
One hundred bushels to the acre is a fair
estimate, and good peanuts are worth 81 a
bushel IF a manor a woman, for that
natter-hss 100-acre farm he can have q
great quantity of peanuts, which, when ex-
changed for dollars, even trade dollars, will
net him handsome return for his outlay and
labor.
Virginia, the "mother of Presidents"
may be also called the mother of American
peanuts. That State alone furnishes each
year over 10000 bushels. The Caro-
linas send their quots from the latter
State are not as white as those of the 9th
er Southern States, and hence not as high
priced.
The nuts are sent to the peanut factory,
as caliow youths are sent to college, to be
busted, coming out as white as the snow
uot Broadway snow, but just common, ev-
eryday snow. The farmers used to do the
dusting and polishing at home, but now they
| find it cheaper to serd the peanuts to the
''peanvt factory"
At Norfolk, Va, there are nine of these
| factories, where million bushels-often more
of the nuts are cleaned, polished and sorted
| by colored women.
Of course, all the peanuts are not large
and handsome Those with only one kernel
are placed in the shelter, which quickly
removes the ''overcoat," and the lonely
| peanut slips through to find lots of company
l ,Aov. halo TE1hJ than n
| to three sizes: ''extra large" "No. 1" and
''No. g" Then the nuts are packed up,
| sent North, and go to the hands of the con-
| fectioner, the man who gives his customers
| taffy.
A better fate awaits the big, healthy
| peanut, the aristocrat, SO to speak 1t
| comes out of the tanning mill white and
| s'pretty as a PICTURE" with the shell un-
| broken. These are sent Forth also and
| become the stock in trade of the street Ven
| der and the 'fcorner speculator," They buy
| the peanuts for five and half cents pound.
| The roasting, when they do not do it them
| selves costs them ore-half cent a pound.
| The loss in the process of roasting is 10
per cent, and the CHEEKY peanut comes uE
smiling in the last round at cost of S1.45
a bushel The vender sells them at ten
cents quart. But his quart is just little
contracted and he manages to have forty ot
them to the bushel in defiance of all rules O.
| bushel, and he receives 81 a bashel, cleal
profit of 50. 90.
But let no one think that this finishes the
| work of the modest peanut. Its mission has
much wider scope. Not only does Ii
figure on the street stand, but in another
form it often appears on the table of even the
best regulated families, as "ollve oil.
But this deceitful and wicked peanut is not
of native growth. It is product of foreign
| lands
The peanut yields from AZ to so per cent
of an oil, almost colorless and nearly equa
to olive oil, in taste and quality. This
oil is obtained in various ways, but the
best is furnished qy means of cold compress
sion, and France is responsible in the main
for it. :
olive oil, but all that is thus labeled is
not olive oil by any means. Last yeal
10 5000, 900 bushels of peanuts went into
the city in their original shape and came
out in neat bottles as ''olive" oil or "huile
d'olive."
This is not all. "No pent-up Utica "con
fines the scope of the peanut. The oil tha
is extracted is also used in making toile
soaps. 1t possessee the quality of rendering
the skin soft and white. Many an actress
who has given her certificate as to the wortf
of some dainty toilet soap would go into hys
terics if some knowing person yelled "pea
| nuts"
The usefulness of the peanut does not enc
here. Its sphere is very extensive, anc
the manufacturers of chocolate know tn
fact remarkably we'll. They take tn
seed of the peanut, grind it to fine pow
der, and produce excellent Chocolate" 81
called.
Thus in many and divers ways the friend o
, childhood, the companion of the circus, get
| in its work and shows that there's millions il
it."